Olguin House, playing with steps

When designing a private house, sometimes is very difficult to combine the compliance of regulations, the brief, the use of traditional elements and all the client’s ideas/exigences in a beautiful design. Some others, it’s just a matter of playing the trick and knowing how to do it. Olguin House is a clear and elegant example, a 135 sqm house in a traditional Gated Community in Jalisco, Mexico, designed by Abraham Cota Paredes Arquitectos.

Olguin House breaks with the scheme of the houses in the neighbourhood with a stepped plan

As a starting point, breaking the scheme of the neighboring houses had to be a must in the design to accommodate all the requirements of the client. So the architects proposed a stepped plan that avoids other houses to overshadow this one and provides many opportunities to balance the traditional elements of the surroundings (slopped roof, tiles and pastel colors) and make them apparent to the viewers from outside while from the inside they look more simpler and enigmatic. This way Olguin House mantains the image of a traditional Mexican household as well as the image of purity required.

The stepped plan also provides a variety of semi interior gardens that make Olguin House turn over itself, gravitating around a White brick screen wall, that organizes public and private spaces. The separation is not complete, as there is a slim groove that allows a visual communication between the inside of the house and gardens.

Finally, light was also an important element to play with in the design. The purple colour of the roof, combined with the light entering the double-height living room through the groove between roof and wall, tricks the visitors allowing them to think that the roof is slightly sloped. This groove is really a window that makes the house visible in the night through indirect lighting, creating a scenographic image of Olguin House really difficult to forget.